3. Kyrie Irving
Prior to the beginning of the 2018-2019 season, I wouldn’t have had Kyrie Irving on this list as a free agent target. His situation in Boston was one of the best in the league. Playing for a top-tier coach in Brad Stevens, surrounded by both veteran and young talent, and a treasure trove of assets managed by an ace GM in Danny Ainge.
That all seemed to go sour by the end of this year’s playoffs as the Celtics under-performed relative to their pre-season expectations and bowed out in five games to the Milwaukee Bucks in the second round. With Kyrie on his way out, both the Boston fans and his teammates seem eager to pack his bags.
But here’s the case for Kyrie. The only place where he’s had major playoff success was with the Cleveland Cavaliers during the 2015-2017 seasons, playing next to one LeBron James. These years for Kyrie culminated in three straight Finals appearances, one of the biggest shots in Finals history and a championship to go on top of it.
With James now in Los Angeles, Kyrie has a chance to run it back, this time with an even more potent super-team than the one he played with in Cleveland. We’ve seen the type of success James has had with a point guard of Kyrie’s caliber and you won’t find a better trio of players who compliment each other better.
Kyrie can assume the role as the primary scorer, James can take a step back and become the primary distributor/playmaker, and Davis can be the man in the middle, punishing teams with his size and skill, and finishing any plays created by James or Kyrie.
There have been reports that Kyrie has his sights set on Brooklyn, as they have the cap space to make a run at two-max level players this offseason. But, the Lakers’ argument for Kyrie should be this — they already have max-level talent, and better yet, LeBron James and Anthony Davis are top-5 talents! This is something that no other team can offer Kyrie.